The Starter by Scott Sigler

The Starter is the second book in the Galactic Football League Trilogy, written by Scott Sigler.  What is the Galactic Football League you ask?  Well, its a football league that encompasses the galaxy.  Clearly, we are not talking your basic football story here.  Set some 600 years in the future, The Starter follows the Ionath Krakens as they play to stay in Tier One of the Galactic Football Leauge.  We saw their ascent to Tier One at the end of 'The Rookie', which is the first book of a planned seven.

The starter in question is one Quentin Barnes, a young 19 year old quarterback for the Krakens.  He is from a world where he has been taught that all other races are inferior to humans.  Talk about culture shock when he joins the Krakens!  There are humanoids with blue skin, Heavy G humans, Ki, Sklorno, Creterakians, and a variety of other races thrown in the mix.  While most of Quentin's culture shock is portrayed in The Rookie, there are still situations in this book that bring out the indoctrination of his early years.

But beyond that this book is about football.  Its also about gangsters, which means its also about money.  Believe it or not, once football spread through the galaxy, it got pretty corrupt!  Players also die on a regular basis.  Even with high tech football armor, the sizes of the players involved still cause massive injuries as they crash together on the field of battle.  Quentin, standing at nearly 7 feet, is about an average hight for the players.

Using his deep knowledge of football, Mr. Sigler perfectly breaks down the action, so even this football illiterate reader can understand and follow the plays on the field.  You feel like you are there with the Krakens as they win, lose and travel the galaxy.

I don't want to go into too much more detail, but needless to say, I can't wait for the third book, The All-Pro.  This is a blend of football, mafia stories and sci-fi.  There is a little bit of everything for everybody in this book.

I give it 4/5 touchdowns.

BLOGGER's NOTE:  This post was edited on 17 MAR 11 to reflect the corrections made by the author of this series himself, Mr. Scott Sigler.  My poor research (or bad memory) caused me to incorrectly list the title of the next book, and also to think this was a trilogy.  In fact, it will consist of a planned seven books.  My apologies to Mr. Sigler.